摘要:

This research examined three explanations for the “superstitious” behavior of pigeons under frequent fixed‐time delivery of food: accidental response‐reward contingency, stimulus substitution, and elicited species‐typical appetitive behavior. The behavior observed in these studies consisted of occasional postfood locomotion away from the food hopper, and a predominant pattern of activity directed toward the hopper wall (wall‐directed behavior), including approaching, stepping side to side, scratching with the feet, bumping with the breast, pendulum movements of the extended neck, and head bobbing, thoughnotpecking. The consistency of these behavior patterns argued against explanation by accidental response contingencies, and the complexity of behavior was incompatible with the classic stimulus‐substitution account. These studies also showed that: (1) response contingencies and prior stimulus experience can modify wall‐directed behavior, but within definable limits; (2) pecking sometimes can be obtained in birds of specific strains, and by providing extended training; (3) placing the hopper in the floor at the center of a large chamber replaces wall‐directed behavior with circling in a manner that resembles ground foraging for food. We conclude that superstitious behavior under periodic delivery of food probably develops from components of species‐typical patterns of appetitive behavior related to feeding. These patterns are elicited by a combination of frequent food presentations and the supporting stimuli present

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1985.44-279

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

When discriminated interresponse‐time (IRT) procedures have been used to assess preference relations among temporally extended operants, deviations from matching have been obtained. Using a yoked‐control procedure, the present study found that key pecking in a discriminated IRT procedure has two sources of strength—that arising from the response‐reinforcer contingency that is explicitly arranged, and that arising from a stimulus‐reinforcer contingency that is a by‐product of the explicitly arranged contingency. The key pecking of all lead birds, and that of 3 of the 4 birds exposed to a yoked autoshaping procedure, was controlled by the keylight that signaled the lead birds' criterion IRTs. Because stimulus control of key pecking by the keylight, whether autoshaped or discriminative, fosters deviations from matching, the discriminated IRT procedure does not provide an appropriate basis for conclusions about preference relations

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1985.44-301

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Button pressing by 44 college students intermittently produced points and the words “GOOD” or “POOR” on a computer screen. The events were arranged according to a paced random‐interval 10‐s schedule in which the target interresponse‐time categories were 1 to 3, 3 to 5, or 6 to 12 s. The degree to which instructions specified certain aspects of the contingency (e.g., whether response spacing was critical) was also varied, and in some conditions the experimenter prompted specifically paced responses during the first 2 min of the session. The procedures shaped the local patterning of behavior of some subjects in less than 30 min of exposure to the contingencies. Most subjects who, in a postexperimental questionnaire, accurately identified the schedule contingencies also responded more accurately than those whose verbal descriptions were inaccurate

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1985.44-315

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Two experiments examined the effects of baseline reinforcement rate and component duration on behavioral contrast and on re‐allocation of interim behavior in rats. Positive behavioral contrast occurred during multiple variable‐interval 10‐second extinction (VI 10 EXT) after a multiple VI 10 VI 10 baseline condition, but not during multiple VI 60 EXT following multiple VI 60 VI 60 baseline. Component duration had no significant effect on contrast. These results differed from those found in studies of pigeons' key pecking. Contrast was accompanied by an increased rate of drinking in the changed component, but drinking in the constant component did not decrease. These results are not consistent with the competition theory of contrast, but are consistent with the predictions based on the matching law. However, no current theory seems to account for all instances of behavioral con

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1985.44-325

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Three pigeons responded on two‐component chain schedules in which the required response topography in the initial and terminal links was similar (a homogeneous chain) or dissimilar (a heterogeneous chain). Key‐peck responding in the initial link under a variable‐interval 60‐second (VI 60) schedule produced a terminal link in which, in different conditions, either key pecking or foot treadling was reinforced according to a VI 60 schedule. Multiple VI 60 VI 60 schedules, in which the responses required in the chain schedules were maintained by primary reinforcement in the two components, preceded and followed each type of chain. These multiple schedules were used to ensure that both responses occurred reliably prior to introducing the chain schedule. Key‐peck response rates in the initial link of the chain consistently were higher during the homogeneous chain than during the heterogeneous chain. These results illustrate that intervening events during a period separating an operant response from primary reinforcement influence that operant, independently of the delay between the response and rein

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1985.44-337

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Three pigeons were given continuous access in their home cages to food reinforcement on two‐component multiple variable‐interval variable‐interval schedules. The reinforcer rates in the two components were varied over seven experimental conditions, and a partial replication over five conditions was arranged one year later. When component reinforcer rates were unequal, ratios of component response rates were more extreme than ratios of obtained component reinforcer rates, a result which in a generalized‐matching analysis is termed overmatching. This finding contrasts sharply with results obtained when multiple schedules are arranged in shorter sessions, in which performance is characterized by undermatching when subjects are deprived of food, and by matching, or equality between component response‐ and reinforcer‐rate ratios, when deprivation is minimal. More molecular data obtained in two subsequent conditions suggested that this finding did not reflect local fluctuations or asymmetries in deprivation. Theories of multiple‐schedule performance that predict that matching cannot be exceeded are disconfirmed by the pr

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1985.44-343

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Two experiments investigated the roles of shock intensity and scheduling in selective punishment of interresponse times. In each experiment the punishment contingencies were imposed on a background of rats' responding maintained by a variable‐interval schedule of food presentation. In Experiment 1 all interresponse times greater than 8 seconds produced shock. In Experiment 2 all interresponse times greater than 8 seconds but less than 12 seconds produced shock. In each experiment shock intensity was initially 0.3 milliamperes (mA) and then was varied through an ascending sequence ranging from 0.1 mA to 0.4 mA, in 0.1‐mA increments. Experiment 1 produced response‐rate increases at low intensities (0.1 and 0.2 mA) but eliminated responding at the remaining intensities. Experiment 2 produced response‐rate increases only with 0.1‐mA shock, although responding was maintained at all shock parameters investigated. Analysis of the interresponse times per opportunity showed differential suppression of the targeted responses in all cases except the high‐intensity shock phases of Experiment 1. The current data support and extend previous studies of selective interresponse‐time‐dependent shock schedules but suggest that response‐rate increases are not a necessary outcome of this type of procedure. The view that variable‐interval schedules of shock presentation selectively target long interresponse times

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1985.44-355

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

In one component of a multiple schedule, pigeons were required to complete the same four‐response chain each session by responding sequentially on three identically lighted keys in the presence of four successively presented colors (chain performance). Food presentation occurred after five completions of the chain (i.e., after 20 correct responses). Errors, such as responding on the center or right key when the left was designated correct, produced a brief timeout but did not reset the chain. In the other component, responding on a single key (lighted white) was maintained by food presentation under a fixed‐ratio 20 schedule. In general, phencyclidine andd‐amphetamine produced dose‐dependent decreases in the overall response rates in both components. With pentobarbital, overall rate in each component generally increased at intermediate doses and decreased at higher doses. All three drugs produced dose‐dependent disruptive effects on chain‐performance accuracy. Phencyclidine and pentobarbital increased percent errors at doses that had little or no rate‐decreasing effects, whereasd‐amphetamine generally increased percent errors only at doses that substantially decreased overall rate. At high doses, all three drugs produced greater disruption of chain performance than of fixedratio performance, as indicated by a slower return to control responding, although the effects ofd‐amphetamine were less selective than those of phencyclidine

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1985.44-367

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

During daily 3‐hr sessions, 5 rhesus monkeys drank drug solutions and water that were concurrently available. The drug solutions were: 1 milligram per milliliter (mg/mL) pentobarbital (2 monkeys), 1 mg/mL pentobarbital plus 0.5% ethanol (1 monkey), 1 mg/mL pentobarbital plus 1% ethanol (1 monkey), and 8% ethanol (1 monkey). The drug solution and water were available under identical two‐component tandem fixed‐ratio continuous‐reinforcementNschedules. Two variables were manipulated: the size of the fixed‐ratio component and the number of liquid deliveries (N) in the second component. Deliveries of the drug solution maintained higher rates of responding than did deliveries of the drug vehicle, water. The number of drug deliveries per session increased with increases in the number of deliveries per fixed ratio and decreased with increases in fixed‐ratio size. Analysis of the results in terms of the proportion of deliveries to responses showed that the number of drug deliveries per session was directly related to the size of this quotient. Finally, when fixed‐ratio size was repeatedly doubled, the following orderly relationship emerged: The greater the number of available drug deliveries per fixed ratio, the less was the percent decrease in the number of fixed ratios completed per session. It was concluded that increases in the number of liquid deliveries per fixed ratio resulted in increases in reinfor

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1985.44-377

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0022-5002    

DOI:10.1901/jeab.1985.44-391

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1985

数据来源: WILEY